This invention relates to a lightweight, collapsible waterfowl decoy which includes a selectively weightable keel.
A hunter will often set out a collection of decoys on a pond, lake, or river for the purpose of attracting live birds to the hunting area. Each decoy is shaped and colored to represent a real duck, goose or other waterfowl. If the decoy is properly made and if a number of them are properly arranged, live birds flying overhead may be attracted to the hunting area.
Decoys floating on water have a tendency to tip over due to waves or strong currents, so decoys are often provided with a weighted keel to maintain stability of the decoy on the water. The keel typically consists of a heavy ballast material, usually metal, encased in plastic or other waterproof material and attached to the underside of the decoy.
The combined weight of a large number of weighted keel type decoys can be quite difficult for the hunter to carry to and from the hunting area. If the decoy has a rigid body (i.e. non-collapsible), the bulk of a large number of decoys adds to the difficultly of transporting them to and from the hunting area. The weighted keel type decoy has the further drawback of requiring the additional manufacturing steps of providing the metal ballast material, encasing it, and attaching it to the underside of the decoy, thus increasing manufacturing costs. The weight of such decoys, and the large space requirements of the rigid body type decoys, requires the manufacturer to incur relatively large transportation costs in shipping the product to retailers.
Others have attempted to provide an inflatable decoy, but such efforts have not met with much success in that such decoys are usually unweighted and therefore have a tendency to tip over in the water, or the final, inflated product does not look realistic enough to effectively attract live waterfowl. The applicant is aware of no prior art decoys which have a keel selectively weightable by the hunter.